New clause 3 - Revocation of registration of designated premises supervisor
Licensing Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Mr Malcolm Moss (North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
I did not think that you were going to come to an end as you read out those amendments, Mr. Benton. That is a testament to the importance and significance of the clause—it is also contentious. At the start of our proceedings I said that we wanted to help the Minister to formulate pragmatic, practical and workable legislation, and this is his one big opportunity to do just that. We know that the Minister's fame—perhaps even his notoriety—has gone far and wide because of his criticism of modern English art, but he has other talents, too. I hope that he is listening carefully to the powerful arguments from all the parts of the industry that will be involved in this area.
Clause 16 begins by defining the ''designated premises supervisor'', and it is followed by a host of other clauses, some of which we will debate in their own right, and others under schedule 8. It is a wide-ranging clause, as once the role of the supervisor has been defined, we can move on to all sorts of other areas.
The way in which the Government have drafted the clause is incredibly bureaucratic and over-regulated. We know how the clause began. Presumably the police, having considered the White Paper in negotiations with Government, said, ''If there's a problem on some premises and we send the boys along, they need to be able to ascertain quickly and without too much fuss and bother who's in charge.'' No one would disagree with that. However, then the civil servants got a hold of the idea, and the draftsman got hold of what the civil servants had done. We have ended up with about 10 clauses, two schedules and all the rest of it, just to tie in the simple concept of having a designated premises supervisor.
Let us begin with where the industry stands on the clause. The British Beer and Pub Association, the British Hospitality Association, the Restaurant Association, the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, Business in Sport and Leisure and the British Retail Consortium, as well as the various licensed victuallers associations throughout the country, support our amendments to the procedures and obligations surrounding the designated premises supervisor.
Members of the Committee will, I am sure, be aware that the list I read out represents a large and diverse part of the leisure and hospitality market. Those organisations have discussed the issues involved with the Local Government Association—we had a spat in Committee the other day about exactly what the LGA had said, to whom and when. The LGA is saying, however, that it too believes that the procedures outlined in clause 16 and beyond are unnecessary.
As I said, the police have expressed their concern that the personal licence holder should be known to the premises licence holder. That is not a problem, because we believe that we have covered that requirement in new clause 2, which requires the consent of the premises licence holder to be obtained before a notice is served.
We are told that the industry has discussed the salient issues at length with the Government. However, it is disappointed that its arguments have not yet received a sympathetic response from the Government. Letters have been written, and some responses are still outstanding. Only the other day a letter from the Licensed Victuallers Association was suddenly produced out of a hat to the Minister's left, and he did not know anything about it. There may well be other letters that he has not seen. I suggest that he insists on seeing every letter that has been written on the subject to date.